What's On Today

By KATHRYN SHATTUCK

Published: August 7, 2010

10 P.M. (Cinemax) THE BOX (2009) A stranger (Frank Langella) bearing a gift worth a million dollars arrives on the doorstep of Norma and Arthur (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz, above), a Virginia couple living somewhat beyond their means. All they have to do is push a red button -- after which someone will die. ''The actors are fine, and to watch Norma trying to persuade Arthur that they need to push the button is to realize that Ms. Diaz should go dark more often,'' Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times about this adaptation of Richard Matheson's short story ''Button, Button,'' by the director Richard Kelly. '' 'The Box' is alternately fluid and inspired, and rarely dull (though it is a little, on occasion),'' she added. ''There are, as with his previous films, various visual gifts, like the spooky image of an airplane hangar glowing in the night and the odd image of Norma's little toe waving like a finger. But Mr. Kelly is so busy sampling genres and confusing the issue that he rarely gives you time or space to enjoy them. In the end, he often seems as lost as his characters, trapped in a Pandora's box of his own making.''

NOON (13) RICHARD HEFFNER'S OPEN MIND Burt Neuborne, the legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, concludes his analysis of the First Amendment and the ruling by the United States Supreme Court that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

9 P.M. (Hallmark) FLOWER GIRL (2009) She loves him. She loves him not. Laurel Haverford (Marla Sokoloff), a florist with man woes, plucks the petals off a few daisies as she tries to choose between two suitors (Terry Maratos and Kieren Hutchison) who have conveniently arrived in the middle of a dry spell. The thing is, she's not sure she wants either of them. Brook Kerr is the best friend who thinks that Laurel is attracted to the wrong type of guy. Marion Ross is the grandmother who is pretty sure that Mr. Right may already be staring her granddaughter in the eye -- if only she would focus.

9 P.M. (Lifetime) MAD MONEY (2008) Diane Keaton plays Bridget Cardigan, an upper-middle-class homemaker in suburban Kansas City, Mo., who takes a job as a Federal Reserve Bank janitor after her executive husband (Ted Danson) is downsized. She can't help fantasizing about how far the old bills that are shredded each day would go toward paying off their $286,000 debt. And since the money is being removed from circulation, taking some really wouldn't be stealing, would it? Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes portray Bridget's partners in crime. ''Having grabbed some loot without being caught, the women go wild and deliriously toss it into the air,'' Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times about this ''breezy, amoral heist comedy'' from Callie Khouri. ''Is wealth, ill-gotten or not, the answer to everything? Yes, yes, yes! proclaims the movie.''

9 P.M. (BBC America) BEING HUMAN Mitchell (Aidan Turner, right) reluctantly agrees to become the king of the vampires, the better to control their thirst for blood. Meanwhile, he finds hope in his relationship with Lucy Jaggat, a new doctor at the hospital who is researching supernatural entities.

9 P.M. (NBC) WRESTLEMANIA XXVI: THE WORLD TELEVISION PREMIEREJohn Cena, Triple H, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio and Edge take it to the mat in this hourlong compilation of highlights from a pay-per-view event filmed at the University of Phoenix on March 28. The action includes the final showdown between the Undertaker and Shawn Michaels, whose interference in a match a month earlier had cost the Undertaker the world championship -- and who agreed to retire if he lost in this rematch.

11:20 P.M. (13) NEW ORLEANS, MON AMOUR (2008) In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a surgeon (Christopher Eccleston) tries to resume his life: he remarries his former wife, renovates her house and returns to his medical practice. And then he meets an old lover (Elisabeth Moss). The director Michael Almereyda quit his teaching job at Yale to do relief work in New Orleans and make this film, his second shot in the city. Ms. Moss's character was inspired by Mr. Almereyda's friend Katya Apekina, who had spent time after the hurricane gutting houses before helping to write this film. ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (1948), starring Humphrey Bogart as a gold prospector who succumbs to greed, leads in at 9 as part of a ''New Classics & Old Favorites'' programming block. KATHRYN SHATTUCK